All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

Raje,

Let me take a wild guess here. They have different tiers for the program. It varies from $40k to $120k. You can have a partner with you. Therefore, your cost is only $20k-$60k. They even show you how to borrow money from credit card companies to pay for the program, right?

Go to johntreed.com and read up on who Robert Kiyosaki is. I hope you won't buy the program.

Getting excited is good. Throwing money away is bad. Listen to Ned.

Wow. It looks like you just got free coaching from Michael Quarles.

If you're still single, why don't you get coaching on how to marry a rich wife? You'd be set for life. Just keep her happy and hit the gym everyday. John Kerry would be a good coach on this. No, not hitting the gym part. :)

Kidding aside. Craig Proctor is about marketing. Mike Ferry is about prospecting, and Brian Buffini is about referrals. Which one fits your style?

Marketing is expensive. The other two methods don't cost much money.

Tim,

Put yourself in the tenant's shoes. Would you sign a lease and pay fair market rent when the landlord just disclosed to you that the house will get foreclosed, but don't know when? Although you're protected by the Tenant in Foreclosure Act, do you mind seeing the notice of foreclosure posted on the door when you come home from work? do you mind flippers/investors knocking on your door weeks before the sale date? Do you mind moving again in 1 or 2 years when you're not ready? Do you mind losing your deposit because the house got foreclosed? How about the last month rent?

Making money is all good, but I believe in karma. As I was taught, there's always a better way.

Best of luck with your new adventure.

Eddie,

I'm in agreement with you here. I don't think it's fair for the tenant, but to each his own.

Marie,

Kudos to you for thoroughly understand The Tenant in Foreclosure Act. The key things that Marie mentioned above was that the tenant must be paying fair market rent.

I watched a judge threw out a case of a lady claimed she signed a 5 year lease for $500/month when the fair market rent is $2,500. This was back in November 2010. In CA, we don't have "notice of foreclosure." We have notice of default and notice of trustee sale. It's a shame that the Dodd Frank Act screwed up our definition. In my opinion, any lease entered after NOD filing should not be honored. Fair market rent in the SFBA can vary $500-$700/month so it is open for interpretation again on what fair market rent is.

The answer is in the last sentence above. :)

Gerald,

That list is not from foreclosureradar. The gentleman probably exported the data from foreclosureradar and put them in his own excel format.

There are two service providers that trustee sale investors typically use in the SFBA. Foreclosureradar and The Blue Sheet. That sheet you have there is pretty useless IMO. It doesn't have the loan position, although this info is wrong sometimes, liens info, back taxes, FMV, etc.......

Justin,

Hailing from the Silicon Valley where jobs are abundant, but the cost of living is expensive. It has been that way for decades, and it appears to get more expensive every year, or is our standard of living going down?

I feel your pain. The 2% rule is out the window. The 1.5% rule is out the window. The 1% rule applies to some areas, but the 0.3%-0.5% rule is more of the norm. :)

Given how cheap interest rate is, the break even is around 0.75%-0.8% IMO. Here in the Silicon Valley, vacancy is almost non-existence based on my experience if you have a desirable unit, which outshines your competition. You could charge a 10% premium for your unit, and you get better tenant. I only look at net cash on cash return at the end of the year. Appreciation is icing on the cake, but it has outperformed my cash on cash return lately. Buying right would give you instant equity in your investment.

As I was taught, there is no right way; there is no wrong way; there is always a better way. Hope you will discover a "better way" to invest to give you the return you're looking for.

Cheers.

Jake,

I see you're in SoCal so I guess your market is likely similar to ours. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Gross Rent Multiple is around 10 to 11. I've seen GRM between 12-15 in some places. The above numbers are for 4-plexes to 16 units. It seems like anything with a GRM of 10 is being snapped up almost immediately.

For me, a GRM of 8 would be good.

Khang,

I started my own business when I was 21 years old & bought my 1st house with my sister in 1996 for $210k. I had no clue what the hell I was doing & bought an investment property here in San Jose for $330k in 1999 with my sister & someone we know. With the dot.com boom & then the RE boom, this home went up to $750k at the peak and now is worth around $550k-$575k. We currently rented it for $2,800/month & owe about $155k on it. We bought both partners out in early 2000's.

I was working full time as an engineer in 1998 & ran my side business on the weekend so I was working 7 days a week for years. When you're a kid that was bringing in about $100k/year in the late 90's & early 2000's, life was good and a small negative cashflow was not a big deal. Thank god I was conservative & didn't buy any additional investment properties during the boom years because the numbers didn't add up & plowed all my money into paying down the mortgages instead. It turned out to be the right move.

The serious investing started in 2009 when the numbers made sense & all the stars lined up. I quit my engineering job in late 2009 to focus on real estate full-time and never looked back. Last purchase was in May of this year. All properties have paper gain between $50k to $100k each. But then again, I'm in CA where we go through boom & bust RE cycles. Cashflow is not fantastic as fly over states, but appreciation can be ludicrous if you catch each cycle.

I was fortunate enough to be mentored by several very knowledgeable RE investors who went through the boom & bust cycle 3-4 times. One gentleman used to be a hedge fund manager for a multi billion dollar company & he owns a lot of apartment buildings in CA.

All I can say is that I got lucky. I found a mentor who has over 30 years of experience to coach me how to buy properties at the courthouse steps. I have another mentor with over 25 years of experience coaching me how to acquire properties using creative methods. I found another local veteran investors who guided through the acquisition of properties through this down turn. All of these people are very successful, and none of them charged me a nickel for any of these coaching. I can call or shoot them an email anytime with a real scenario & they will walk me through it. I don't know what they saw in me, but they're very proud to call me their pupil. None of them are on this board though.

There are some very knowledgeable people on this site that are more than willing to share their wealth of knowledge. Keep reading & you will know who they are.

Well, that's how I got started. All of my rental properties are in San Jose. Like I said above, I got very lucky compared to a lot of people in the San Francisco Bay Area, who lost everything during this down turn.

Based on what you have presented, I suggest you abandon your dream of investing out of state. There are way too many pitfalls that I don't know where to start. Learn to invest in your local market and master it before moving on. Just my 2 cents.

Best of luck.